Overview
- A joint operation announced Saturday between the U.S. and Nigeria killed Abu‑Bilal al‑Minuki and several lieutenants in a precision air‑ground strike on a fortified site in Metele in the Lake Chad basin in an action carried out between midnight and 4 a.m. local time.
- Nigerian defense officials said he advised ISIS units outside Nigeria on media operations, economic disruption, and the making of weapons, explosives, and drones, and they said his death removed a key coordination link.
- President Donald Trump announced the mission and called al‑Minuki ISIS’s “number two” and “the most active terrorist in the world,” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the joint team had tracked him for months.
- The strike is the second U.S. military action in Nigeria in five months and follows deeper cooperation that includes more intelligence sharing, faster weapons sales, and about 200 U.S. personnel training Nigerian troops.
- Al‑Minuki was under U.S. sanctions in 2023 as Abu Bakr al‑Mainuki, born in 1982 in Nigeria’s Borno State, as the wider region continues to face jihadist violence and mass kidnappings that put civilians at risk.